All posts tagged ‘Parenting’

Image: Chart created by Jessamyn from FBI data housed at the Bureau of Justice Statistics, bjs.gov.

With each passing day since the Sandy Hook tragedy, we hold our children tight, tuck them into their beds, and grieve for the parents who will never kiss another sleeping cheek. Then we wonder. How safe are our children? Could this happen to our babies? In our communities?

The questions are natural, and the answers seem frightening.

The first lesson that any law enforcement officer, criminologist, or security specialist has to learn is that any sufficiently motivated offender is likely to succeed. That’s hard to live with, and many of us in this field develop a sense of hyper-vigilance because we are alive to the darkest possibilities of human nature. We have to stop searching for answers that don’t exist and give up the myth of a total security solution.

Crisis-oriented safety measures are comforting, but they will never completely succeed. If we ever perfected school campus security — we never will, but let’s imagine — then the next perpetrators would find different methods. They might hijack a school bus, or develop a bomb, or, or, or….

So how do I find comfort? I look at the criminal-justice field as a whole and I am tremendously impressed with how far we have come in the last 40-odd years. Take a look at the homicide rate per 100,000 and tell me: Would you rather be raising a child now when the homicide rate is the lowest it’s been in decades, or in 1980, before Columbine, when Atari ruled, Call of Duty hadn’t even been imagined, Smurfs were Smurfing, and the murder rate was twice as high? Continue Reading “Thoughts After Sandy Hook: We Are the Safest We’ve Been in 40 Years” »

A couple of years before my oldest child was born, the DSM, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders created by the American Psychiatry Association (and used by insurance companies and school systems to mete out services), officially re-evaluated its autism diagnosis, further slicing it into “high” and “low-functioning” subsets.

“High-functioning” children with average to profoundly gifted IQs who used language with relative ease but had difficulties with social interaction and coordination would now be given an Asperger’s Syndrome diagnosis. “Low-functioning” children with significant neuro-cognitive delay and difficulties with using and acquiring language would continue to receive an “autistic” diagnosis. Children who didn’t fit neatly into either of these two camps would be given a “waste basket diagnosis” of Pervasive Developmental Disorder-No Other Symptoms (PDD-NOS).

This last diagnosis was continually criticized because it encompassed such a large range of abilities, deficits, and possible outcomes that it provided little therapeutic guidance on its own. In an effort to give the PDD-NOS diagnosis more value, additional research categories sprang up just as we were looking for answers about our child, and so, instead of receiving an accepted, understood diagnosis, three neurologists (and thousands of dollars we didn’t have) into our search we were told that our oldest son had Multiple Complex Developmental Disorder, a little-known research category that acknowledged our son’s ADHD, nonverbal learning disorder, anxiety, sleep disorder, tic disorder, auditory processing disorder, learning disabilities, sensory integration disorder, and severe gross and fine motor delays, but was not used for billing by insurance, was not understood by my school district, and because of an association with psychosis and schizophrenia (that we have never seen evidence of in our son), proved deeply stigmatizing when communicating with teachers.

Putting a name to an atypically-developing child can establish reasonable expectations and identify best therapeutic interventions. Giving a name to my son’s set of strengths and deficits should have made life better, should have helped us access services, as well as a community of support. But it didn’t. In some ways, the diagnosis we received made things worse. Instead of “autism,” my son’s IEP category has always been “OHI,” or “other health impaired.” This has resulted in longer waits and harder fights with our school district to provide necessary services and therapies — a recurring, increasingly-antagonistic cycle every time we felt his IEP needed refining. Continue Reading “Goodbye Asperger’s?” »

It’s been about two years since we all heard the story of little Katie who was bullied by the boys at school because she carried a Star Wars water bottle. Practically overnight the geek community came to her aid, offering support and encouragement for Katie and for everyone who’s been the target of bullying.

Katie’s Mom, Carrie Goldman, has become a spokesperson for the anti-bullying movement. She’s first and foremost a parent and her new book, Bullied: What Every Parent, Teacher And Child Needs To Know About Ending The Cycle Of Fear, combines that experience with an extensive amount of research. This is truly a must-read for all parents, but especially for those whose children are dealing with the affects of bullying targeting them and their friends.

Listen in as GeekMom Nicole Wakelin talks with Carrie about how we can help kids stop bullying, teach them to help each other when it happens, and most importantly create an environment where bullying is simple not acceptable.

The only time I stood up to my bullying stepfather was about Star Trek: The Next Generation. The show was on and I walked to the kitchen for ice-cream. Returning, I went for the remote, but my stepfather took it first and changed the channel.

I told him that I was watching Star Trek. He replied something snarky like, “You snooze, you loose, kid.”

Yes, we were one of the very few families at Dragon*Con. While I fully understand why adults want to leave them at home, I can attest that one can still have a fantastic weekend even with the kids! Photo: Patricia Vollmer.

Yes, I was warned. I saw the example set by the other GeekMoms who were taking part with me in the Geeky Parenting panel. One of them was able to have grandparents back home watch the kids, the other was staying with relatives near Atlanta who kept her daughter for most of the con.

Due to our unique circumstances, not having family near us in Florida or Georgia to watch our kids, we knowingly took the risk. We bought Dragon*Con memberships for our 7- and 9-year-old sons. It had crossed our minds for me to go alone, but I’m very glad everyone was able to experience it. I’d be telling stories to my husband and sons for the next month if they couldn’t see it all!

The verdicts?

The kids did very well and had a very memorable experience. The parade and the Yule Ball were the highlights of our weekend. The kids want to go again.

We really enjoyed doing family friendly activities.

My husband and I still had the occasional beer and cocktail during the con, perhaps to feel more at ease in our Spandex.

It was difficult after lunchtime every day, as the kids got very tired and didn’t enjoy standing in line. Sitting in panels seemed to help them recharge. By dinnertime the kids were ready to go late into the night (at least by the kids’ standards).

Would we take the kids again? One day. But my husband and I hope to attend in the future without the kids. So that we can do some of the less-than-friendly-towards-kids activities.

There is plenty for kids to do, and you can still have a very full schedule even with the kids in tow. We certainly did. But if you do take the kids, be prepared for the following modifications to your Dragon*Con experience.

In this house, we listen to a lot of music. We always have. From the youngest of ages, my son Liam has had all sorts of music to choose from, ranging from your geek standbys like They Might Be Giants and Jonathan Coulton to local North Carolina bluegrass to rock ‘n’ roll like The Beatles and The Beach boys, not to mention a big heap of Classical music.

But no band has stuck with him like Keane. I introduced Liam to Keane when he was three, with their third studio album, Perfect Symmetry. I was smitten with the album, which was an exciting departure from their more mellow sound (loved the synth) and I figured he might enjoy it, too. After all, so much music I loved as a kid was shared by my parents. Without them I’d never have heard Bonnie Raitt, Tracy Chapman, James Taylor, Fleetwood Mac, and so many others.

Anyway, when the album came out it was a tough time for us as a family. I distinctly remember splurging on the album in the iTunes store. We were in the process of losing our house, and we ended up moving from a cozy little North Carolina town to the state capital. We promptly lost our cat. My husband lost his job.

Maybe there was something about all that chaos and emotion that drew Liam to connect so much with Keane, I can’t say for sure. But soon he wanted to hear everything Keane ever wrote. He fell particularly for their song “Atlantic” off of Under the Iron Sea and used to beatbox the drum part in the backseat of my Saab as we ran around doing errands, his little blond head bobbing up and down with the music. At first he didn’t even know the name of the song and used to just ask for “Boom-boom-CHEE, boom-boom-boom-CHEE.” But I knew what he meant. (Now, he pronounces is so flawlessly.)

In the time since, I’ve been working a lot. Before my daughter was born, I was working a very demanding job that kept me away from Liam most of the week. Our Keane listening sessions all but evaporated until the release of Strangeland, which just happened to launch a few days before my daughter Elodie entered the world. As happy as I was with the new music, Liam’s enthusiasm was tenfold. Now six, he’s become a full-on fan. Strangeland has propelled him into the fan stratosphere. He wants to hear the B-sides, the demos, the outtakes, the videos. He wants to know their entire history. In short, he’s geeking the heck out about Keane. A few choice tidbits from his typical rotating queries regarding the boys from Battle:

“Mom, I would love to see Keane play live. That would be a dream come true!” “Can we look up the Sovereign Light Cafe on Google Maps again?” “Which song does Tim sing instead of Tom?” “How’d they meet?” “What’s that instrument?” “I haven’t heard this song before!” “Which one is Jesse?” “Where’s Bexhill?” Singing the lyrics to “Sovereign Light Cafe” with his headphones on, not realizing we can all hear him. Crooning, “Sea fog rolli-ing!” “Mom. Keane’s even better than the Beatles.” Continue Reading “Somewhere Only We Know: Music, My Kid, and Keane” »

Starting tomorrow night, Kristen Rutherford and Mike Phirman will host the Geek & Sundry Google Hangout #parent. Every second Tuesday of the month, from 8-9PM Pacific time through February, Kristen and Mike will host two or three guests to discuss a topic. This month’s topic is “First!”

If you are interested in more of the Geek & Sundry Google Hangouts, there is a list on the Geek & Sundry YouTube page. If you miss out on the Hangout tomorrow night, you can watch the ones you missed anytime by visiting the Geek & Sundry site.

Recently my son was given a 40 gallon tote box full of Playmobil toys. There are big pieces and little pieces, trees and beards, and s a tiny suitcase and a large tent. He is almost three and my youngest is five months old. Not really age appropriate some would say, and I would have to agree. Yet he loves his “peoples” and they keep him occupied for hours on end. So how is it that my motherly intuition did not instantly seek to banish these diabolical small toys from my home?

Well, we applied a little common sense to the situation. My husband and I took the box, reviewed all the pieces and evaluated what he could play with safely and what he could not. Little pieces went into storage for a future date, while big pieces, and a few small accessories for testing the situation, are being played with on a daily basis. He is having a great deal of fun with them. Occasionally we come across a little piece that is problematic and into the box it goes.

Photo: Free The Egg

When I was child I collected little toys from inside Kinder Eggs. Kinder Eggs are an Italian chocolate egg, the egg is hollow and inside is a plastic container with a small toy inside. Sometimes the toy is a figure, sometimes it is a toy in pieces for you to assemble. I had a small basket full of them, and believe me a small basket full of Kinder toys is a lot of Kinder toys. When I met my future sister-in-law, who I discovered had a passion for all teeny tiny things, I of course introduced her to Kinder Eggs. Recently, we were shocked to discover that you couldn’t bring them into the US.

Have you ever wondered why some people can’t get anything done and others can’t relax?

Why your kids react so differently to the same parenting methods?

Why some babies are calm and others hard to console?

Why your behavior changes around certain people?

Why getting along can be so difficult?

Why People Drive You Crazy: Part One: A Fresh Look at Temperament is the book for you. Karyn Van Der Zwet spent the last seven years poring over psychology, anthropology, physical health, and neurology trying to find out what provides each one of us with a sense of well-being. The answers she found dismantled many commonly held beliefs we rely on to parent our children and relate to each other.

Parenting is hard. It is fun and rewarding, but it is also a lot of work. Even in the most harmonious relationships, parents are bound to bump heads every once in a while. My husband and I, while extremely argumentative over mundane stuff just for the sport of it, rarely truly disagreed on anything. Until our daughter came along.

The first purchase my husband and I ever made together was while we were dating. It was an old paperback copy of Tolkien’s The Hobbit along with the corresponding set of The Lord of the Rings. We each had a fondness for Tolkien — his lifelong, and mine less than a year old. We had each “grown up” on Star Trek: The Next Generation. But where I enjoyed, or rather obsessed, over a good book, he enjoyed board games. Where I spent my teen years in the world of Austen, he spent his in the realm of Dungeons and Dragons. While I used the computer to pen a rather bad horror story, he broke his to see if he could fix it. When we fell in love, we recognized and embraced each other’s geeky habits. The fact that we each had our own peculiarities made it that much easier to come together.

Over the years our tastes and interests have merged somewhat, as we each found ways to indulge the other. I held him in a headlock to watch Cinderella II, while he took me to see Sin City. Both events are still used as ammunition by each of us. I lured him to the literary world with such books as Lectures on the Theory of Games by Harold Kuhn, and How to Build a Time Machine by Paul Davies. He tempted me with board games such as The Lord of the Rings Risk, and Trivial Pursuit Book Lover’s Edition, though admittedly nobody will play Trivial Pursuit with me. In fact it was because he read GeekDad, that I found and started writing for GeekMom. Some days I will read GeekDad and tell him of an article he should read, some days he gets something from GeekMom. Both routes lead us to some excellent conversation, in which we sometimes agree!

Sharing our passions with each other and with our children is important to my husband and me. So when my son’s grandmother bought him a chair from Pottery Barn, his name was embroidered alongside R2-D2. When picking out board books, we placed Good Night, Gorillaalong with My First Batman. My oldest son already has an almost complete collection of vintage Star Wars figures, that he will receive when he stops pulling the heads off of his current batch of Stormtroopers. My youngest son has a T-shirt that says “Future Mr. Darcy.”

We each still have our individual interests. I will never play Halo or Portal with him; he will never join my book club. But each of us will encourage our sons to share in both, at the right age, of course. Who do you share your geek pride with?

I follow Time magazine on Pinterest and so saw the now-infamous cover-shot of Jamie Lynn Grumlet nursing her three-year-old son–mother and child both standing and gazing solemnly at the camera–while my first cup of morning coffee was still cooling last Thursday morning. I took a moment to gaze at their expressions (hers perhaps a tad defiant, his both possessive and nonplussed), then scanned down to read the cover-story title: “Are You Mom Enough? Why Attachment Parenting Drives Some Mothers to Extremes–And How Dr. Bill Sears Became Their Guru.”

Immediately I thought, “What fresh misogynistic hell is this?”

Understand: I had no problem with the fact that the nursing child in the photo was almost four years old–though that would not have been a workable option for my family. That he was standing on a chair in order to nurse gave me pause, as did the incongruously surreal phrase “God of Cricket” hovering near Mrs. Grumlet’s clear-eyed gaze. However, it was the smug invitation to woman-on-woman judgment in that title that actually sent me screaming over the edge. Motherhood is hard enough work and women judge themselves harshly enough already on how well they’re doing it; we do not need a for-profit media machine standing on the sidelines helping us feel worse about the job that we are doing, pitting those of us on the front lines against each other.

My family home has always been kid friendly. It wasn’t the hub of social activity while I was growing up, but there was always something on hand for everyone to play with, regardless of age. Alas, children grow up. My youngest niece is now 15, and it has been years since hordes of children have assembled at my parents’ house. Who knew they would prefer my aunt’s house, with the indoor pool?

Now I have two boys. One is just discovering that he has feet, but the other — ah, he is a force to be reckoned with. I have watched his imagination grow by leaps and bounds in the past year. He no longer requires my input; he will happily sit while his toys have a conversation with each other, he will race cars on the moon and he will rescue every animal he has, from every possible danger.

Photo: Sarah Pinault

At the end of my parents’ yard is a shed. In this shed is an old blue box. This old blue box is full of toys that have been collected over the years, thrown in for countless kids to play with. My dad couldn’t recall the last time it had been opened, and so was excited to see what was inside. It was a time capsule of sorts, discarded toys from different times in the life of our entire extended family. It was also a complete hodgepodge, consisting of original Star Wars, Masters of the Universeand Pixar. My son played with everything indiscriminately, and everything interacted with everything else. Esmeralda danced with Celia, while a Wampa took a ride on Thomas the Tank Engine. I don’t know who had more fun, my son or me and my dad watching him!

You won’t win a prize if you can name everything in this box, but you can add an extra notch to your geek credentials if you can tell me what the ship is. We hoard things in my family – it’s what we do. I also married into it, so I predict that in 20 years’ time, when I open the tote boxes I periodically fill with discarded toys, I might have a surprise or two waiting for me. This old blue box certainly had a lot more on the inside than it appeared to contain from without. What would be in your toy box time capsule?

My second son is two months old this week. Where the last two months have been pretty near perfect, he has decided that this is to be the cranky month. In the past week, in the middle of the night, I have hit upon several ideas that need to be invented before I begin contemplating having a third child. As I have neither the time nor the brain power to do so, I offer the list to the geek parenting community at large. I suggest these might be excellent choices should your child be uncertain as to what to present at the next science fair. They may wish to do most of the work on a third shift basis, as it seems this is when the ideas make the most sense.

A pacifier tracker. We own about a dozen pacifiers, only three of which actually succeed in pacifying my son. Of course they are constantly going missing. I need a LoJack that inserts into flexible plastic and can be heard through a diaper pail, where my toddler thinks they belong.

A toddler positioning beacon. I would like a device that emits a beeping sound whenever my toddler is in dangerous proximity to my baby. It can attach to either child, but should be loud enough to alert any parent that has happened to glance away for the 3.2 seconds it takes for a toddler to seek out said baby.

Pressure sensitive bottles. I would very much like to know if my baby is cranky because he has gas to pass, or if he is ready to transition from four ounce bottles to five. If the bottle nipples were pressure sensitive surely they could tell me when suction was at it’s strongest, so I could then determine the level of hunger present at the end of each meal.

A bouncing pedal. My son loves to sit in his bouncy seat, sometimes he just likes the shape of it, sometimes he likes to bounce. I however have very little rhythm, and so if he wishes to bounce while I wish to eat, I end up covered in food with a happy baby, or he ends up screaming while I fill my belly. I’m thinking in terms of the transition sewing machines made, from a pedal to a mechanical pedal. If I could just step on something and hold my foot in place while the seat bounced, then I could once more eat a warm meal instead of wearing it.

A burping machine. I can change a diaper in under thirty seconds, I can change a diaper using one wipe, I can prepare a four ounce bottle of formula using space age bottles using only one hand. I cannot elicit a successful burp from my son more than one in every seven attempts. Everyone else can, my husband just has to look at him and he burps. If there were a machine I could load the baby into after feeding, that would massage the correct places in order to produce gas, well that would be wonderful.

A cry sensitive mobile. My second son doesn’t have a mobile to soothe him yet. My first son had Wally, the Red Sox mascot, and a mobile that tinkled “Take me out to the ballgame.” It was wind up, and so every time it ran out before he wanted it to we had to wind it up. I propose setting up a mobile with a microphone, every time the baby’s cry hit a certain pitch, the mobile could turn itself on.

A baby monitor coffee machine. This one is the money maker. When the baby’s cry is picked up on the baby monitor, a message would be sent to your coffee machine. By the time you and the baby are downstairs and warming up food, there will be a nice steaming cup of coffee waiting to keep you awake before the sun can.

Should you or your offspring make a million from any of these ideas, please feel free to retire comfortably, just send me the finished product!

The annual community Easter egg hunt in Colorado Springs, Colorado has been cancelled. It wasn’t about lack of funding, or interest, or a shortage of dyes; it was about the poor behavior of the parents.

They had pushed and shoved and shouted and hollered so much that the organizers couldn’t face another year of an Easter egg hunt that had come to resemble something more akin toThe Hunger Games than the friendly antics of Peter Rabbit. How unbecoming, I thought. How ugly. And finally: how sad.

I remember the last community egg hunt I took my son to, when we lived in Florida. In my memory, it’s a bit like the parental melee described in Colorado Springs. Neither my son nor his friend were able to pick up a single egg, while nearby children danced maniacal jigs over their brimming baskets. Volunteers, armed with bullhorns and a sincere desire to play nicely, waded through the crowds, exhorting children to share and laying down the law on the rule of only one plastic egg (with prize coupons) per child.

It wasn’t a Faustian scene. I saw plenty of parents begging their children to share, demanding that they put down the extra plastic eggs, and engaging in that time-worn dialogue of the teachable moment. “But why?!” “Because it’s not nice!” “But why?!”

Neither was it a Utopian fantasy in which all parents and children were similarly engaged in the difficult process of parenting and growing, learning the golden rule through object lessons. There were plenty of parents breaking the rules, stepping over the ropes, and pointing their children toward the painfully obvious neon orange egg nestled in the grass right there.

What drives us to forsake our fundamental values as parents? At heart, I like to think that however diverse our backgrounds, we share some common goals and values. Most of us can sign on to the following:

We have a duty to our children to help them succeed in the world.

We owe our children the best we have to offer, even when our best is not as good as our neighbors’.

Children deserve our respect as individual human beings with their own sense of volition and value.

Parenting at its best is a thoughtful process, open to new ideas, driven by a conscious sense of purpose.

Fear is the only thing I know that has the power to turn good parents away from the careful, reflective human beings they once were. Fear of failing our children and fear of our children failing. Fear that someone else is getting all the best resources and fear that, in a bad economy, there is no more room to share. Fear that the cost of giving someone else a leg up will result in the loss of all personal advantage.

This fear has a price, and the price, I think, is greater than any of us should be willing to pay. Fear robs us of the profound joy of living in the moment with our children, of experiencing, with guidance and nurturing, the vicissitudes of life that are found in the most ordinary of days. By not letting our children come in last, play on a losing soccer team, grieve the tiny deaths of a bucketful of sea monkeys, we forfeit opportunities of bonding and growth. When we fight to make sure our kids get ahead, just a little bit more than anyone else, we steal from them the greatest joy of all: reveling in the pleasure of self-accomplishment and earned glory.

Fear-based parenting twists our thinking and warps our behavior. It is as fatal to the simple joys in life as it is detrimental to our children’s greater good. I asked my son what he remembered from that last egg hunt, and he quickly responded, “running through the forest.” After a pause, he added, “and I didn’t get anything.” Yes, he remembered, and no, he isn’t damaged. He’s fine, and all of the other children will be fine too.

Join the GeekMoms and GeekDads for “The GeekFamily Guide to the Movies” on Monday, March 12th from 11:00am to 12:00pm in the Austin Convention Center, Room 15. You’ll hear from GeekDad Anton Olsen and GeekMoms Andrea Schwalm, Ruth Suehle and Nicole Wakelin. Here’s the panel description…

If there’s one thing geeks know, it’s movies. But how do you raise your geeky kids to watch the right movies? Join writers from Wired’s GeekDad.com (named one of the top 10 Best Blogs of 2010 by Time Magazine) and GeekMom.com blogs as they discuss the ins and out of parenting, kids and movies. They’ll tackle such difficult questions as: Why is the mother always dead (or die) in Disney movies? How young is too young to watch the Lord of the Rings? Should you let your 8 year old watch the “Chucky” movies? What if he begs really hard? How can you encourage your kids to make their own movies? How do you explain to your kid that they can not convert their mother’s car into a land-speeder?

Come share your stories and get candid advice from fellow Geek Dads and Moms! Don’t have kids? Show up and find out what may be in store for you if you ever do!

I’ve been a big fan of books since I was a child partly because my parents would read to me before bedtime. I started this ritual with my daughter when she was very small. She loves her books and is already wanting to learn how to read on her own even though she is only three. She has books that were mine as a child, as well as newer ones. I don’t really consider any of her books very scary at all. But there is a new study that shows that I might be in a parenting minority.

There was a study done that shows that one in five parents have decided to not read their children classic fairy tales because of the scary factor. Since my daughter is prone to nightmares, I do try and monitor what she watches. This is why I haven’t let her watch movies like Star Wars yet because I think they would be, in her words, “too scary scary”.

But fairy tales aren’t really something I ever saw as really scary. She has seen the Disney versions of many of the classic fairy tales as well as having heard them read to her as a bedtime story. None of these stories have kept my nightmare-prone toddler up at night.

At the end of the article, there is a list of top ten fairy tales that parents no longer read to their kids. I have read one story to my daughter that was on the list, Hansel and Gretel, with no issues. One of her favorite books is a variation of the Gingerbread Boy fairy tale, which is also on the list. So I don’t really think fairy tales are too scary for my three-year-old.

You can read more about this story at The Telegraph’s website. Do you think that fairy tales are too scary for your kids?

You may have heard about this dad who recently punished his daughter through a video on YouTube. Through writers on GeekMom and various social media venues where the event has been shared, I have seen every opinion in the spectrum of possibilities from chastising the father to praising him.

The video was a very timely topic in our house as my husband and I are preparing to hand over my netbook to our almost-6-year-old as part of her Valentine’s Day gift. We have discussed at length what parameters will be set for her when using the computer (out at the kitchen table, ask first, etc.). All of that aside, if and when we allow our kids to use Facebook, they will be required to have Tim and I as friends (not because I don’t trust my kids, but because I don’t trust other people). I would hope my kids would have the sense to either tell me to my face if they had a problem or tell one of their friends over the phone or in person.

The dad was nice enough to work on the daughter’s computer and put money and time into it for her to use in completing school work. The dad found the upsetting status by going to the family dog’s Facebook page – she didn’t block the dog, so it showed up in the feed. Ranting about Facebook’s privacy practices isn’t going to solve anything in this case since the dad wasn’t snooping. If anything, the daughter should have been a little smarter about airing her feelings in a technology-based public arena when her dad works in IT and is working on her computer.

Finally, the shooting of the laptop: I do not own a handgun, but I have been in competitive target shooting. I commend the dad for following through (and, he has responded to his following through on Facebook). He had told his daughter the FIRST time she pulled a stunt like this that if it happened again, he would put a bullet in her computer – and he did! Means of punishment aside, the dad followed through. You have no idea how frustrated I get with parents who let their children get away with stuff by saying, “if you do that one more time, I’ll punish you,” for the fifteenth time in a row. I have to wonder what buttons this girl pushed on her parents to have a parent have to follow through on a threat of this magnitude.

Personally, I would have just password protected the laptop and hid it in my closet with a post-it saying, “You get the password when I get $130.” Good software that was just paid for doesn’t need to be destroyed when it can be used by someone else.

It’s a sad situation all around. Technology is a two-sided coin; it makes our lives easier and harder all at the same time. I’m sure this girl will need a computer to finish school work. Sounds like she’s going to have to beg to use the family computer or huff it to the library. I’ve also seen some opinions wondering if the father just made the video for his own validation and not to punish the daughter, because with destroying her computer, she won’t see the video. Kids have cell phones. She’ll see the video, and hopefully be reminded she needs to follow the rules or suffer the severe and embarrassing consequences. How would you have handled the situation?

NOTE: Much of the text of this post is from a post I had written for my personal blog on Thursday, November 10th, shortly after the university Board of Trustees made their decision to remove President Graham Spanier and Head Football Coach Joe Paterno. Some of my emotions and information in this post have been overcome by events.

Only the most die hard of GeekMom fans might have realized what a Penn State fan I am. Because of the first avatar image I had used for my first six months writing here.

This picture. I have been a proud life member of the Penn State Alumni Association since I graduated in 1995. My house is decorated all over the place, my husband and I have a closet full of sweatshirts, polo shirts, hoodies, football jerseys, and my sons have more than their share of posters, pennants, and stuffed Nittany Lions decorating their bedrooms.

But that pride has been bruised quite a bit this past week.

If you’re an American, unless you’ve been living under a rock, it’s hard to miss how the web world is filled with the Penn State Athletics Sex Scandal. Or whatever you want to call it.

Via e-mail, Twitter and Facebook, I’ve been commiserating with my PSU classmates. We’re convincing each other that the university will dust off, move on and continue to move forward. We’re pondering amongst each other what the leaders must have been thinking to cover up something like this, whether JoePa will receive any traditional retirement benefits, and all those great Linebacker U players who regarded Sandusky as a mentor right up through this year! The alumni association is pleading with their membership to continue support to the association and university. Ironically, we received an Penn State Annual Gift letter on Tuesday. We typically give a modest amount every year, specifically targeting the meteorology department and AFROTC. This likely won’t change…those departments still need support.

So now I get nervous thoughts about my kids going off to school each day, going off to college in the future, headed out to Boy Scout camp — without the parents — by the time they’re in 5th grade.

I don’t want to go through life like this. I want to trust people. After all, I trusted a 19-year-old with my sons for a few days in September while my husband and I traveled to Omaha on AF business, right? I trust my sons on a school bus every day, I trust them at birthday parties, at school, and at those occasional trips they take with friends’ parents. Other parents trust me with their kids.

So the decisions have been made swiftly, hopefully the justice system will work out and if found guilty, Jerry Sandusky will never be allowed to interact with youth ever again. Some of my friends and colleagues are wishing for much much worse, but I won’t go there with this audience.

I never thought this would be the way I'd have the "Don't Do Drugs" talk with my kids!

After signing myself up for Glitch, I decided to let my kids develop characters of their own (under my e-mail addresses and with my close supervision). Over the weekend my oldest son took a trip to the dark side of Glitch: “Glitch Hell“.

Simply put, you visit Hell by dying. You can visit Hell several times, and there is even a separate set of achievements you can earn from multiple trips to Hell. Those who are experienced in the game might think that my son simply walked away from the computer, forgetting to “Exit the World.” But in my son’s case, he was mining rocks with another character who offered him a substance called “No-No Powder“.

No-No Powder is Glitch cocaine, my friends. You sniff it, get high, and then encounter this horrible crash that can only be saved from death by another “hit” of the No-No Powder. I have some in my backpack, picked up from someone who left it on the ground. I haven’t used it, but instead was planning to sell it for money.

His avatar sniffed the stuff, experienced the 6 minutes of maximum mood and energy, and then crashed HARD. The avatar died, went to Hell, then resurrected upon completing a task (my son crushed grapes). Upon resurrection, you have zero mood and near-zero energy and are very close to dying again. My son had very little food, very little currants (money) and no skills to make anything.

Sounds like a textbook drug addict…rehabilitation time!

This was not something I expected to have to do so soon, but I grabbed my arsenal of inspirational, lesson-teaching messages and quickly took over the computer control of my son’s Glitch character. We got Mace Windu fed, educated and built up his account a little under my direction. Then we had to discuss drug use, Internet chatting, the existence of hell and responsible gaming all at once on Saturday night.

“What did we learn?”

“Don’t sniff the no-no powder….”

“When is it a good time to use drugs?”

“When a doctor says so….”

“Will we ever sniff no-no powder again?”

“No…..”

“Do we take stuff from strangers?”

“No….”

This whole experience — which took about an hour of our Saturday night, also got me thinking about how family-friendly this game might actually be. There’s a lot of…um, sophomoric humor scattered throughout the game that my sons probably won’t understand, but I feel nervous just the same about exposing them to it.

My feelings about my kids seeing Glitch are becoming similar to my concerns about my sons watching The Simpsons, by the way. They really enjoy the humor, but (a) Mom and Dad have to be nearby when they’ve watched it and (b) it has to be a rerun that Mom and Dad are already familiar with so they know what adult themes to expect.